Hallelujah, I slept until 6 a.m.! Breakfast on the lovely rooftop terrace, disgusting coffee as expected. TG I brought my own…
We pulled our luggage to entrance of medina for van pickup and loaded up, off we went. We drove through the city, mostly quite third world in appearance, past a tony neighbourhood on the outskirts with high walls, big houses and lots of pools and then were into arid desert with occasional olive groves. And more olive groves. We are getting olives with breakfast and dinner, which is great for me as I love them! After about an hour, with the roads deteriorating somewhat (asphalt edges crumbled, potholes and the odd washout repaired with sand) we arrived at our starting point (a curve in the road with a pullout). At this point we were in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The bikes were all standing waiting and there was a slight downhill to begin. It was the usual chaos as people fitted out their bikes – there are 24 riders including guides Redouin (front) and Yusef (back). Eventually we got off and the first hill appeared fairly quickly, with the ebikes zooming off into the distance.
It was HOT. Bearable on the flat or a slight incline, but the effort of going up a big hill producing more heat was fairly tough. The hills were reasonable initially, with some undulations, and then the real work began. A long uphill to a dam, with a brief rest in the minimal shade provided by a security kiosk, then up some fairly impressive grades up to the next ridge with the GPS showing this to be going on for some time. Did I mention it was HOT? With the reflection from the tarmac my bike computer was reading 39C. It was brutal. Fairly quickly I opted out of heatstroke and hitched a ride on the bike van. That hill was long, and grades approaching Mt. Seymour’s – I was happy to have opted out of that one. Probably doable in reasonable temps, and that was the theme of the day – the overall elevation gain wasn’t too bad today, but the temps did me in and it felt like at least twice that. I was wearing my de Brim hat around the helmet and although it seemed to cause hilarity going through villages it was definitely an asset. (although perhaps it wasn’t just that, as I learned at dinner later that the front riders also were being greeted similarly).
After topping the first hill after the dam – hot and dry
lake above dam
At the top of the hill the cooking van with our cook Hassan had pulled over and concocted a lovely lunch – it was great to cool down in the shade and we had our first introduction round with the riders as last night had been too noisy at dinner. Riders from Ottawa, Vernon, Jasper, Edmonton, the 5 grannies for Africa from Victoria and someone from White Rock. They all seemed like a nice bunch, some looking quite elderly and others definitely much younger and still working. The Spice Road rep along with us runs the custom tour dept. and lives in Bangkok. The CCCTS tour director’s friend Aziza had appeared and was riding along in one of the vans – her invitation to Morocco had been the inspiration for this trip to birth.
After lunch we set off again, and I joined the troops on the ground back on the bike again. The next hill wasn’t long in appearing, and was a longer one than the last according to my GPS. I assumed my usual role as lantern rouge and struggled up about half of it before the heat got to me again and I bailed. It was a long trip to that pass, and I can only bow to the other muscle riders who were tolerating the heat and managed to get up it. Even some of the ebike riders were beginning to look tired. I retrieved my bike again and suspect this is going to be the pattern for the trip.
at the top of the plateau
one of several villages we passed. The front guide, Ruidon, would speak to the kids gathered at the side of the road to watch and I’m sure was telling them to be polite. By the time the back riders arrived (not me at this point) they were becoming increasingly impolite. Kids are the same everywhere – egging each other on!
olive trees and minarets can be relied upon
We had a brief stop before descending, under the shade of some date trees – also plentiful and their products frequently enjoyed in our snacks -to top up water bottles. On the plateau it had cooled down to about 30C and that felt very pleasant and was tolerable on small hills. Some impatient drivers in both directions made for some interesting passing and there were some closer than liked passing but the majority of drivers were courteous and we all made it intact on the descent into town.
the town in the distance offered hope of getting out of the increasing heat again at the riad. Unfortunately we rode through town (up a hill of course) and around the corner before arriving at our final destination.
The last stop was a canyon which was pretty impressive – some people were visible at the bottom swimming? Picnicking? It would have been a long way down and up again. Nobody from our group was tempted even had we the time – we were all done.
cliffside at Imi n’ilfri. The habitation at the top left without fencing would have been shut down in a western country! Unfortunately like most third world countries there was garbage everywhere including this lovely site.
The destination for the day was shortly after that and had apparently been changed from the original as our van driver misdirected one poor cyclist and we did a detour before he was called on the phone and we turned around. The actual hotel was on the main road and was interesting to say the least. We had a welcome glass of tea and then a stretch on the grass in the centre of the complex; then were broken into groups and given a guide to our rooms depending on status of single, twin or double as we were put into different building. Unfortunately the guides disappeared, reappeared then disappeared again so we headed out on our own to scout for our rooms as the luggage had already gone there. The singles were eventually met by Aziza and directed through a carpet museum, then a largely unlit corridor in an adjacent building, and then finally met by a hotel person who took us to a different building entirely for our rooms – pick your own. It was a bit disorganized. The rooms though were spacious, and we were lucky enough to have running water, but only a tiny window and they were very dark with the second light switch in my room hidden behind the headboard of the bed. Two twin beds, not sure why we were the “singles” building? We learned at dinner that the “twin” building had no water at all for the first 45 mins.
We had time to shower, get rearranged then back to find the restaurant for dinner at 7:30 p.m. The wifi was only available in the restaurant, hence the late posting – a delicious smell and line of tagines was visible inside the dining area. Dinner was very tasty, soup and olives followed by tagini with either beef or chicken and a vegetarian one. The usual problem has surfaced for travelling vegetarians – we apparently don’t need protein of any kind as there’s no sign of substitution at any of the meals so I’ll have to have a word with the Spice Road rep. tomorrow.
There’s another large tour group here, a group of Germans. Wonder what happened to the original accomodation, as it has definitely changed from the itinerary given to us. We are now staying in the Tamount.
Tomorrow we have nearly double the elevation gain of today, and a final pass of 2,000+ meters so depending on the temperatures I’ll likely be in the van fairly soon. Today’s ride would have been doable without the heat but the temps are killing me… The van driver Abdul unfortunately doesn’t speak much French and the translate app doesn’t work out of cell range (which was most of today) so it’s been difficult to communicate.
I was hoping I don’t have nocturnal visitors as I noted rat poop on the windowsill last night and so far, so good – I am writing this at 3:30 a.m. as insomnia has struck again.
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